The Structure Again! Common Mistakes in Writing the Discussion

Abstract

One of the most frequent comments that the editors of Education and Self Development make at the stage of preliminary assessment includes the Discussion. This section is either not discursive or written superficially. In this editorial I want to delve deeper into this issue. To begin with the structure of a scholarly paper, we recommend using the IMRaD format. This is an acronym made up of the first letters of the following chapters: introduction, methods, results and discussion. There are variations within this format depending on the scope of a journal. For instance, the introduction can contain the analysis of prior studies, discussion can be integrated into the results chapter or the discursive aspect of a paper can be combined with conclusion. Though this practice is acceptable, we do not recommend authors to use integration. The rationale behind this recommendation is that it is difficult to achieve a balance in case of incorporation. When authors combine the results with the discussion, the focus is often shifted towards the findings, and the discussion usually gets lost in a huge flow of information or is not even presented. Therefore, separate sections eliminate such shortcomings.